Saturday, January 31, 2015

What were they thinking?

As promised, a summary of the interesting things I found on yesterday's home inspections.  These were two nice looking homes that had some serious issues.  Enjoy!

As Paul Harvey would have said, here is the rest of the story on the teaser video I posted yesterday.  When my client and I were in the crawlspace, I bumped into a support pillar, and it moved, a lot!  There were several pillars installed with dry-stacked cinder blocks (no mortar at all).  They were all loose, and no longer providing support to the beams supporting the floor joists.  They may have provided support when they were installed, but without the necessary footers, they had settled and were no longer supporting the beams.


The three columns in this picture were all loose, and yes, that first one really was leaning as much as it appears.  The beam above it was quite loose and could be moved by hand.


While in the crawlspace, we noticed a lot of water on the underside of the vapor barrier.



Unfortunately, the vapor barrier was only partially installed, which was probably the cause of the increased moisture in the crawlspace materials.


This is the reading from the moisture meter in the above picture.  As you can see, it's wet!  This can not only lead to mold, but also rot and wood destroying insect infestation.



Which might have been the cause of the mold-like substance we found growing on the joists and subfloor.


Or maybe the moisture was coming from the sewage leaking from the drain lines.



Either way, it was causing a lot of corrosion to the electrical system components.


This is what happens when your toilet is loose and the wax ring doesn't seal anymore.


The attic wasn't immune to moisture problems either.  Where do your bathroom exhaust fans terminate.  The correct answer should be outside.  The black stuff on the underside of the roof sheathing wasn't paint...


And the electrical issues continued in the attic too!


Those were all just from the morning inspection.  Now on to the afternoon inspection.

The electrical in this attic was just as good as the first house.  


The yellow and orange wires were connected to a plug and then ran across the attic to a bedroom closet ceiling light.


These wires almost made it to the junction box, I guess the electrician didn't have his wire stretcher with him.


There are a couple issues in this picture.  First, the duct work is the supply side, and is not insulated.  This can be a huge energy loss and they should have used insulated duct work.  The other issue, is a bit more serious.  The metal tab on the rafter is where a truss member used to be.  I guess the HVAC duct was more important than the roof support.


Of course when you look at how they installed the HVAC itself, you get the idea that maybe this wasn't a professional job.  The outside AC compressor was from 2001, and I would guess the inside unit was the same.  I can only guess, because that vertical truss member was obscuring the data plate.  It was also preventing the access cover from being removed, so I'd pretty much guarantee the inside of the unit has never been checked or cleaned.  


This is the view of the fireplace flue looking from the attic above the 2nd floor all the way to the fireplace on the first floor.  In the unfortunate event of a fire, it would be able to quickly spread from the first floor to the attic.  This is one of the primary reasons we stopped using balloon construction in houses.


These are the drain lines for what I suspect is an unpermitted half bath. Drain lines are not supposed to be this steep, unless they are more than 45 degrees down angle.  Steep slopes (more than 1/2":12" up to 45 degree supposedly lead to clogs as the water leads the solids behind.  


This was a floor joist in the new addition (done with a permit) but the code inspector missed this one.  For some reason plumbers forget to reinforce the joists the hack away when they need to run their plumbing in the same place.



That's all for now folks.  Stay safe out there, and remember to hire the best home inspector you can find.  For more on our services, check out www.vhillc.com



Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Disaster house

Today's post is a bit different from my past posts, as all of the issues are from one house.  I inspected this house for an investor client and couldn't believe the number of issues I found.

The trim around the house was deteriorated in several locations.  This one had sagged so much that a family of birds had moved in!


The sill plate under the deck ledger had deteriorated so much that I was able to push a car key in with no effort at all.  This will be a major repair, as the entire exterior wall sits on this piece of wood.


 The siding on this, and several other houses in the area, was falling off.  This makes me wonder if an incompetent contractor went through after a storm and got a bunch of people to let them make repairs.


 This is the ceiling in the garage where the exterior trim was damaged.


Here is the master bedroom closet right above that mold stain in the closet.


Hopefully most people realize that trees should be kept away from the roof to prevent damage, but this tree had already made its mark on the roof.


This is what I found in the bedroom closet right under where the tree had damaged the roof.  


Even though this water damage was fairly evident, here's what it looked like on the thermal imaging camera.


It took me a minute to figure out what they had done here.  This is actually the sump pump discharge.  No, it shouldn't be dumping into the house's drain system, and that's just where the problems began.


This breaker was for the heat pump, and was overheating quite a bit.


Thankfully it stood out quite clearly on the thermal imaging camera.


This was the ductwork, and it's one of the worst I've seen.  I have a feeling this will require a complete replacement of the ductwork.  I couldn't get a picture of the inside, but I wouldn't want to breath the air coming out of it.


A neighbor told me that the basement had flooded at least once.  The fuzzy walls in the basement confirmed it.



 What's missing on this bathroom sink...hint for the Star Wars fans out there...It's a Trap!


 This addition was just screaming for attention.  I would guarantee there was no permit pulled for this one.  It was built on the old patio slab and supported with 4x4s.  Inside the drywall was cracked in many places, and I would have to say there was some structural movement going on.


This is the underside of the addition, and aside from the insulation being installed upside-down, you can see the deteriorating support posts.  This is one addition that will probably not be able to be retroactively permitted.  My advice to my client was to plan on it coming down.


Just for a little humor, this was posted on the electric furnace.


I always harp on making sure that your home inspector goes into the attic.  This is one of the few I didn't go into, since the critter this bait was set up for didn't take the bait and was still hanging out.  



That's all for now folks.  Stay safe out there, and remember to hire the best home inspector you can find.  For more on our services, check out www.vhillc.com